


The Chancellor's Price

by NebulousMistress



Series: Let Slip the Hounds of the First Order [11]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon-Typical Speciesism, Environmental Destruction, Gen, New Republic Era (Star Wars), New Republic Politics, New Republic Senate, Planet Arkanis (Star Wars), Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:54:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26820232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousMistress/pseuds/NebulousMistress
Summary: Princess Leia Organa has accepted your invitation to Arkanis, my Lady. She will arrive in three standard days to discuss the implications of Chancellor Mothma's pro-humanist policies.
Series: Let Slip the Hounds of the First Order [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698706
Comments: 15
Kudos: 21





	1. Penance Paid

**Author's Note:**

> This story makes me sad. I built Arkanis as this lush world of fungal forests and rich ecosystems and deadly predators and then the New Republic came in and did _this_...
> 
> I will make them pay dearly for what they've done.

Leia Organa remembered the stories. 

Leopold Shae, former Senator of Arkanis, made sure she listened to all of them. She wasn’t sure she believed them. After all, Kashyyyk was once considered a planet of darkness and monsters. Those stories were lies told by the Empire to justify their enslavement of the populace, stories unfortunately upheld by the bestial visage that Wookies presented. Arkanis would be no different, Leia was sure of it.

She had never been to Arkanis. That changed today, now she would see for herself just how exaggerated the stories were.

Hyperspace swirled, flared, and faded as her ship the _Phoenix III_ dropped out of hyperspace in the Arkanis System. Two stars danced around each other, one yellow and one orange, their planets orbiting the pair in broad orbits. The distant gas giants Iaun and Kayvia trailed in the distance, their bright blue clouds shining like jewels in space. The inner planet Araysis spun airless and rocky, blasted by radiation from the dancing stars.

And here in the middle, on the far outer edge of the habitable zone, lay Arkanis with its twin resonant moons Mered and Meran. From here Arkanis looked like little more than a ball of white and gray cloud, a world of swirling storms and nothing else.

Leia pulled away from the viewport and headed to the cockpit of her ship. Captain Oness was a more than capable pilot but she wanted to be there when they made contact.

The _Phoenix III_ was a small ship meant for a Senator, a tiny corvette little bigger than an Imperial shuttle. Still, it fit her needs for personal missions like this. It comfortably fit a small crew, her aides, her droids, and still allowed for the privacy she demanded from those who served her. For this mission she allowed even fewer people than that, keeping herself to two aides, a pilot, R2-D2, and C-3PO.

Leia entered the cockpit as her pilot opened the comm.

“Arkanis Space Central, this is the _Phoenix III_ ,” he said. “We request permission to enter atmosphere.”

A hologram flared to life above the comm emitted on the dash, they might have been human or Arkanan. Leia supposed it didn’t really matter yet. “ _Phoenix III_ , state your business.”

“Senate business. We have Senator Leia Organa on board on the invitation of Senator Carise Sindian.”

The hologram moved, adjusting screens that weren’t visible from this side of the comm. They tapped something in their ear, their lips moved but no sound was picked up by the comm. Finally they spoke. “ _Phoenix III_ , this is Arkanis Space Central, permission to land is granted. The Lady Sindian welcomes you. Please orbit around and begin your approach through grid R-7, all other descent vectors are blocked by storms. Landing instructions will be supplied by sensor contact.”

“Thank you.” Oness disconnected the comm and Leia had the strange feeling that the Arkanan on the other side had never actually looked at them through the holoemitter, though why that could be she had no idea.

He closed the comm and glanced back to Leia. “All set, Your Highness,” he said. “You might want to take a seat.”

Leia didn’t answer, nor did she move. She did grab onto the bulkhead, subtly bracing herself for a rough approach. She did not like the look of that thick atmosphere.

The _Phoenix III_ descended into the cloud deck and the viewport went white. Oness switched to flying by sensors, the viewport lighting up like a viewscreen with all the relevant information. Radar showed diaphanous yellow and green reflections, dense cloud cover as far as the beam could penetrate in every direction. EM spikes spoke of lightning arcing across the deflector shields of the _Phoenix III_ , spiking again and again until the shields went into auto-shutdown. The engines whined as they fought a crosswind that Arkanis Space Central hadn’t warned them about.

The white viewport grew darker as they descended until a sudden sound left them all confused. It was the sound of rain against the unshielded viewport.

The clouds opened up beneath them, rain washing out any visuals they might have gleaned from the planet below them. It was the sensors that told them of the running lights below in the darkness. It was the sensors that gave them wind speed data, rainfall rates, weather data that no core world would ever allow. Any civilized world would terraform this place to strip these clouds from the atmosphere and--

Leia stopped herself before allowing that thought to continue. She was here on Carise’s invitation, to experience Arkanis for herself. Lady Carise was already outspoken against the New Republic’s programs to terraform Arkanis, to make it easier for human immigration, and Leia was going to reserve judgement until after her visit.

The ship’s sensors interfaced wirelessly with data transmitted by the control tower, an overlay of the spaceport below lit up on the viewscreen. Real time data showed people on the landing deck as they moved out of the way, as they held plasma flags to guide the corvette into a berth.

The _Phoenix III_ landed.

“Very good, Captain Oness,” Leia praised. They were here. They were here and it was raining.

*****

It was still raining, fat drops spattering against the viewport. They turned the running lights of the landing platform outside into haloed streaks of orange and yellow plasma, the only outside features visible from inside the ship.

Leia knew a change in the weather was too much to hope for. Sunlight on Arkanis was known to happen from time to time, an event so rare it sparked its own myths and sayings. ‘A sunny day on Arkanis’ was a saying used here in former Regency space to describe a rare event that couldn’t be counted on, she’d even known Luke to use it from time to time. But that didn’t stop her from hoping as she stood watching the rain.

A tapping on her chamber door drew her from the rain outside.

“Oh dear, oh dear.”

Leia smiled as she watched the reflection of C-3PO in the viewport. He shuffled into her chamber, the door sliding closed behind him. He seemed unsure, unable to pick a position. “Yes, 3PO?” she asked. She knew he preferred direct questions he could answer, queries that made him feel useful.

3PO stopped fidgeting. “Princess Leia, why have we not disembarked?” he asked.

“We can’t,” Leia admitted. “Not yet. We have to equalize pressure with the outside first.” It was true, the planet’s atmosphere was a hazard. A minor hazard to be sure, something the human body could easily acclimate to, but she’d rather none of them suffer the sudden pressure sickness that would come from stepping outside immediately upon landing.

She idly wondered how the Arkanans did it. If they had evolved to fit their environment so completely, then how did they manage in human society? And if they were still human, as her politics demanded, then what did that mean for humanity? Where was the boundary between human and alien?

Was there a boundary at all?

“Princess Leia?” 3PO asked.

“Tell me what you know about Arkanis,” she ordered.

C-3PO fell into an easy recitation, speaking aloud the information he had accessed from the New Republic database before their trip. “Arkanis is considered a marginally habitable world by galactic standards. The thick water-rich atmosphere maintains 4.031 bars of pressure at the surface level, 5.375 times space standard pressure. Gravity is 1.326 g at surface level, 1.768 times space standard. The climate is universally dark and misty with little variation from the average temperature of 12.86 degrees centigrade. Convective storms are common, varying from nearly constant over the equator to twice a week at the poles.”

“Thank you, 3PO,” Leia said. “What about the people? What is the current political situation on Arkanis?” She’d already been briefed on the situation by several dozen missives from ex-Senator Shae and Senator Sindian but she wanted to hear a non-biased view. A droid’s analysis of the situation was the least-biased she was likely going to get and she trusted C-3PO.

“Historical accounts conflict on the nature of Arkanis,” 3PO began, starting with her first question. “Modern revisionist history claims the Arkanis Sector was settled 4200 years ago by colonists following the Corellian Run. Older stories tell of a civilization already here by that time, possibly the result of a previous wave of colonization that had evolved in isolation. What is factually known is by the time the Republic formed a thousand years ago, the Regency Worlds had a thriving empire that encompassed the majority of the Arkanis Sector. The Regency was ruled by an Empress. For the last thousand years the Empress has always been a member of the Sindian family, though she would traditionally renounce her Sindian name as part of her coronation.

“The Regency has always maintained powerful allies,” 3PO continued. “During the Republic years the Regency allied with the Hutts due to Arkanis’s location at the intersection of the Corellian Run and the Triellus Trade Route. Tatooine was always treated as a bridge world, owned by the Regency but rented by the Hutts and used by both groups to maintain an image of legitimacy in front of the rest of the galaxy. When the Republic transitioned to the Galactic Empire, the Regency was allowed to keep its sovereignty in exchange for taxes and small concessions such as the Imperial Officer’s Academy and the _Vensenor_ Flight Academy. The storms of Arkanis provided secrecy for ground training and difficult flight conditions for pilot training.

“After the Siege of Arkanis destroyed the _Vensenor_ and leveled the ground-based Academy, Arkanis was forced to sign a treaty stripping the Regency of its sovereignty. The Regency Worlds each individually joined the New Republic Senate with Senators assigned to represent them. Senator Leopold Shae was assigned to represent Arkanis. His appointment was met with suspicion by the planet he was assigned to represent and he never visited.”

“Leopold once told me he wouldn’t travel to Arkanis if his life depended on it,” Leia mused. “He told me he’d be killed and ritualistically eaten upon landing. He seemed to believe it.”

“His policies are considered unpopular,” 3PO said. It was an understatement if Leia had ever heard one. “Human immigrant populations have complained about disappearances and harassment. Non-human immigrant populations do not report the same complaints. Arkanan native populations complain about environmental destruction and food shortages despite the recent introduction of efficient crop plants. Of course, this could be related to the dietary instructions Senator Carise Sindian keeps on file.”

“Dietary instructions?”

“Yes, native Arkanans are carnivores,” 3PO said. “If this is true then the conversion of food production from native foods to efficient crop plants would cause mass starvation.”

3PO’s words clashed with his polite, nearly cheerful voice. Mass starvation was never something she truly understood. Wealth redistribution had been a pillar of Alderaanian society and the greed of some in this galaxy still shocked her. But then, this was the same society that had once rented Tatooine to Jabba the Hutt. She wasn’t entirely surprised.

A knock at her door drew her attention. She palmed the door release to reveal Captain Oness at the threshold. “Your Highness, we’ve reached equilibrium safely,” he said. “We can disembark at any time.”

Leia nodded. “Thank you, Captain,” she said. He bowed and left, letting the door fall closed. “I need to prepare.”

“Of course,” 3PO said. Still he stood there. He never was adept at understanding proper dismissals.

“3PO, out,” Leia ordered.

“Oh! Oh, oh…” C-3PO took his fussing with him as he shuffled out.

Leia sighed. She was nearly dressed, though with the rain she already regretted her mourning wools. Still, she was the last Princess of Alderaan, she had no choice but to wear them. Even if she did feel like she was about to step waterlogged into a pit of spotted vipers.

*****

The hatch to the _Phoenix III_ opened into darkness, water, and the howling winds of the eternal storm.

The chronometer insisted both suns spun near their zenith and yet the sky outside was dull gray. Rain fell in clinging sheets as Princess Leia Organa stepped out of the _Phoenix III_ onto the pebbled landing pad. 

Plasma lamps lit the night more than the obscured suns could have, their many colors shifting in the darkness. Two long lines of lights detailed the edges of a walkway that led into darkness toward the silhouette of what might be a building and smaller shadows approaching them.

Leia’s aides both bowed at what they saw and Leia wasn’t sure if she envied them or not.

First came a figure with a lantern held aloft as though to light the way of the party behind them. The plasma inside shifted in color from pale to blue to pink to yellow to pale again. Their hood obscured their face, blocking their features from view, and their weighted cloak hung heavy all around them in the rain.

Leia recognized the woman behind the lantern bearer. Lady Carise Sindian made no effort to shield herself from the rain, in fact she seemed to welcome it as every drop caused her draped and wind-flowing silks to shimmer with a faint blue-white glow. Her crest was bound behind her in a delicate cage of tiny pearl strands that dangled and wrapped all down her back. Her eyes were unnerving, uncovered and glowing greenish in the reflected light of the lantern bore before her. Only her lack of bestial markings gave her any illusion of humanity.

Carise’s own aides walked in step behind her and Leia didn’t recognize any of them. They were far enough from the lantern that their forms were muddled by the rain. Even their eyeshine faded into the darkness, or maybe Carise did keep humans among her staff. Leia couldn’t be sure, only that there were four of them.

The lantern bearer stopped at the edge of the lights cast by the _Phoenix III_ , head down and lantern raised as they stepped aside to allow those who followed to pass. The aides stayed behind in the shadows beyond the lantern’s glow. 

Lady Carise Sindian stepped forward, her glowing shimmer disappearing in the bright running lights of the _Phoenix III_. Leia likewise stepped forward, meeting Carise halfway.

“Princess Organa, I’m pleased you accepted my invitation,” Carise purred. She stepped into Leia’s space, hands curling over Leia’s upper arms as she nuzzled. Leia wasn’t sure how to react, if she should respond in kind, wrap her own hands around Carise’s arms and nuzzle her back or apologize for being unable to purr. Carise rubbed her face against Leia’s once then twice, each cheek feeling the cold and wet kiss of rain-soaked skin.

“We have much to discuss,” Leia said, her voice raised to hear herself over the rain.

Carise winced, her ears twitching back as she pulled away. “We do,” she agreed and Leia had no idea how Carise made herself heard without having to shout. “The Senate’s newest proposals threaten us both, Princess. But please, accept my hospitality. I have no doubt your staff are uncomfortable in the rain.”

“I thank you, Lady Sindian,” Leia said graciously. “We would be honored to accept.” Still, she wondered at that statement. Her staff would endure as they always did, this was no worse than many things she’d asked of them during the years spent building the New Republic. But she would not turn down Lady Sindian’s hospitality, not when it got them all out of this oppressive rain.

The lantern bearer led the way away from the _Phoenix III_ , plasma lantern held aloft. It didn’t seem to emit nearly enough light for Leia’s comfort, though she seemed to be the only one bothered by this. Even her own aides were unbothered, their Alderaanian eyes adapted to darkness in ways Leia could never quite manage even with the gene treatments.

She shivered in her mourning wools as they grew cold and heavy in the rain. Somehow they felt heavier now than they ever had before.

*****

The transports were enclosed, and for that Leia was grateful.

The rain petered out, fading to a gentle mist in the darkness. Fog rose from the ground, so thick Leia couldn’t see below them as the two transports skimmed the fog toward somewhere Carise called ‘the Ambassadorial Estate’. Leia wondered about that.

“Princess Leia?”

Leia rose out of her thoughts to her two aides. Two sets of wide brown Alderaanian eyes looked up at her, her aides Ashter and Masall chosen for their skills and secrecy as much as their parentage. “What did you notice?” Leia asked.

“Lady Sindian wasn’t lying when she claimed Alderaanian expatriates live on Arkanis,” Ashter said. “Two of her aides are Alderaanian.”

This time the cold Leia felt had nothing to do with her sodden wools. “Are you certain?” she asked.

“They could see by the lantern light,” Masall said. 

“Could they be Arkanans?”

Ashter snorted. She then held her hand over her mouth and blushed. “Sorry,” she allowed.

Leia glanced around the transport. This pilot was one of Carise’s; though the cockpit was enclosed she could not be assured of secrecy. Captain Oness and her droids sat in the back, R2 muttering about Dagobah and 3PO trying to reassure him. Oness looked like he was taking a well deserved nap, though Leia knew from experience he would rouse at the slightest mention of his name.

Small viewports on the sides of the transport showed solid gray fog and a misty sky. Even if they could see through the fog Leia doubted there’d be much to see.

“So Carise has Alderaanian aides,” Leia allowed. “Are they handpicked for this mission? Is Carise attempting to put me on edge or at ease?”

“You don’t trust her?” Masall asked.

Leia didn’t answer that. To tell the truth, she wasn’t sure if she trusted Carise or not. She wanted to. If Carise was right then Arkanis had essentially harbored Alderaan after the Death Star. Alderaan and Arkanis historically did great things together, perhaps Carise considered this an extension of that greatness. But if Carise was false…

Carise Sindian asked a great deal of Leia Organa. Defying Chancellor Mothma was not a decision Leia was willing to make without good reason, not when there was an entire Rebellion’s worth of history between her and the Chancellor.

The cockpit door slid open. “Senator Organa,” the pilot called. “You’ll want to see this.”

Oness awoke and the droids both snapped to attention. Ashter and Masall looked on in interest as Leia got to her feet and strode to the door. “Yes?” Leia asked.

Their pilot gestured to the empty co-pilot’s seat, then gestured out through the viewport before him. Leia took the seat and then gasped as the transport rose above the fog.

A single tor of bare rock split at the base, three towers of stone rising into the twilight-dark sky. The Ambassadorial Estate, as Carise had called it, consumed those towers like a fungus. Twinkling lights of yellow and red and tiny pale blue shimmered, all of them following lines and patterns like vines that wrapped around the stone. Spires stood out against the clouded sky, open balconies filled with light and warmth.

“The Ambassadorial Estate,” the pilot said with pride. “One of the last of the Sindian estates still standing.”

“What happened to the rest?” Leia asked.

The pilot’s pride faded, his mood growing subdued. “That is a story I expect the Lady will wish to tell.”

Leia fell silent as she watched the approach. With the cockpit door open she could feel her aides pressing behind her for better views. She took comfort in her aides as they pointed out little things: a garden of puffy pink balls swaying in the wind, balconies all open to the rain, a whole series of bathing pools, mothers with children, Masall was particularly interested in her glimpse of a nude man with his impressive red… crest. By her blush it wasn’t his crest that Masall had been looking at.

Their transport followed another transport, the one that ferried Carise and her entourage. Every circle and dip and close approach matched the one Carise likely ordered from the first transport. That put Leia at ease; she could understand wanting to show off the beauty of a homeworld.

Leia allowed her aides to point out the sights while she looked at what they didn’t see. The architecture didn’t look modern at all, it barely looked industrial. Instead it looked almost like the entire estate had been grown, a carefully sculpted living thing.

She felt a chill as she remembered something Carise mentioned once. Domed cities. Architecture like this wouldn’t survive a domed city. A domed city would have to be built from the ground up after scraping that ground to the bedrock. 

It was with this thought that Leia felt the transport descend toward a landing pad in the center between the three spires. At least that part looked relatively modern, the durasteel construction half-consumed by the estate around it. She idly wondered how long it would take for the landing pad to be overgrown completely.

Another lantern bearer waited for them as they disembarked, their weighted cloak obscuring their face and features. They held the lantern aloft and led the way inside.

Leia stepped out of foggy darkness into bright and warm comfort.

The foyer stretched high up above, meeting in a peaked ceiling several floors above. Five layers of balconies betrayed the height of the grand entryway, each one a delicate tracery of silken fibers and curling designs that called attention to the organic nature of the entire estate structure. Plasma lights flickered in intricate lanterns from each balcony, hanging within reach of the floor below it. The only trace of darkness in the entire foyer was directly above, the arch of the ceiling containing shadows where the supports of the structure twisted and gnarled and probably grew.

It looked otherworldly and oddly beautiful but that wasn’t what made Leia feel welcome and warm.

It was the sounds.

Children laughed as they chased each other on the third floor, their bare feet padding with surprisingly little sound. A researcher on the fourth floor hung over the balcony and shouted about someone resetting the holonet passwords again. A woman sang on the topmost balcony, her voice echoing from above to fill the room with sound. Servants shouted on the second floor as a teenaged boy jumped off of the balcony and landed on his hands on the ground floor; he turned the landing into a leap and a run as he stayed on hands and feet, galloping out like an animal.

Leia heard laughter behind her and turned to find Carise amused by the display.

“I would have thought the Ambassadorial Estate to be less lively,” Leia admitted.

“I’m sure it was once,” Carise admitted. “When it was used for ambassadors. Now it contains the majority of the Sindian House on Arkanis.” She grew subdued. “Follow me, Princess,” she said.

Leia glanced back at her aides, who followed behind at a distance. Yet Carise appeared alone as they left the foyer for a spiral staircase up to the fifth floor. Leia caught a glance of the balcony and the foyer below before Carise led her down a bright corridor to a room on the exterior of the spire.

There was no window or door to block the rain or the wind. Instead this room seemed to accept the weather. Thin strands of hyphae fibers waved as they dangled from the ceiling near the walls. Tiny droplets of water pulled from the air by these hyphae dripped down onto carefully placed mushroom caps that all glowed blue as the water touched them. Enough blue light shimmered from the strobing mushrooms to fill the room with a diffuse blue light that ended at a grand balcony that took up the entire outer wall. But something felt wrong about this balcony.

The balcony overlooked a bank of fog, nothing more. But it wasn’t just the lack of view, the balcony itself felt wrong. The edge seemed cut off, hacked away, and the balustrade looked different from the others in the foyer. Those looked like they’d grown there, this looked like a polymer webbing hastily installed and left where it was.

“Look outside,” Carise said. “Tell me what you see.”

Leia looked out over the fog bank. In the distance she thought she might see some vague lights, perhaps a settlement a few clicks away or perhaps a major city several dozen kilometers distant. The fog made it difficult to determine what it was. “Fog,” she said.

“And in the distance?”

“Lights,” Leia admitted. “Maybe a city?”

“Those are the lights of the domed capital city,” Carise said. “It’s forty-five kilometers away.”

That made sense to Leia, the fog seemed thick enough to obscure even the lights of a major domed city.

Carise waved her arm to gesture at the fog below and the lights in the distance. “This is all that’s left of Arsindar, capital of the Regency. At the heart of it, the Empress’s Estate. All of it destroyed during the Siege of Arkanis. Your New Republic decided a domed city was the best option for reconstruction.”

“I’m sure it was the fastest option,” Leia allowed.

“I might agree with you if their first act hadn’t been to clear the entire forest,” Carise sneered. “Even after the Siege, the forest would have recovered. You wouldn’t see fog here. You’d see the upper caps of the forest canopy. My father used to tell stories about them. The caps were black with algae lifted up above the fog to soak in whatever light they could, lichens that fed the forest and helped it grow. This balcony connected to the canopy caps, they were substantial enough to walk on.”

Leia looked out over the fog bank that stretched as far as the eye could see. It didn’t make sense, Rebellion ships worked hard to prevent the kinds of collateral damage Carise implied.

“Every balcony below us used to connect to a corresponding level built or grown into the forest,” Carise continued. “All the way down to the mycelia mats at ground level. People lived in these forests, lived and hunted and played and **died**. The New Republic leveled the forest for a hundred kilometers around every domed city they built to ‘increase stability in the region’ and the human Senator your Rebellion colleagues appointed…”

“He didn’t lift a finger to stop it,” Leia realized.

Carise didn’t have to answer that. “Before the Siege, House Sindian was spread across 11 estates over Arkanis, each surrounded by its own forest. Eight were damaged, or so the New Republic claimed. That was their excuse when they leveled the forests, felled the estate spires, and built their domed cities. Three million Arkakans were left homeless by the destruction, forced to move into the domes. Cut off from the weather and the rain. Forced to pay absurd markups in order to purchase the food they need from New Republic suppliers.”

“Surely Arkanis could grow its own food?” Leia knew her statement sounded like a weak question the moment she said it.

Carise gestured to the fog. “Not anymore,” she snapped. “Your New Republic insists we grow human foods for human bellies. We don’t make the enzymes you use to eat those foods, we evolved them away! On paper Arkanis looks like a lush world with greenhouses capable of feeding billions. In practice, food is the single greatest expense in any Arkanan’s budget because those greenhouses have displaced native food production.”

Carise leaned against the polymer webbing. It creaked under her weight, supporting her like a hammock. “My people are starving,” she warned. “Hunting for food was criminalized under the Empire, it was one of the stipulations of our continued independence. Parliament is under pressure to reverse that law. I’m not sure I see a reason to stop them.”

Leia simultaneously wondered what she meant by ‘hunting for food’ and desperately did not want to know.

“But you’ve had a long trip,” Carise allowed, regaining her balance as she pulled away from the balcony. “Compression can be exhausting if you’re not used to it. You and your aides need rest.”

“I wouldn’t object,” Leia allowed. It would allow her the chance to speak to her aides in private. 

“The visitor’s spire still has beds,” Carise said. “I’ve had a few rooms made up for you and your party. What is your plan for your droids?”

“I’ll keep them with me for the time being.” Leia hesitated before stepping into Carise’s space, awkwardly nuzzling the Arkanan with her own face. It was an odd movement, one Leia wasn’t sure she’d done correctly, until Carise responded by arching and purring and returning the nuzzle.

“Dari will show you to the visitor’s spire,” Carise said after Leia pulled away. She gestured to the door where Dari stood with his hunter’s markings flushed black in the damp air, straps holding a long skirt of silk to his hips. Leia recognized him from Hosnian Prime, one of Carise’s Senate aides. 

“Thank you again,” Leia said, nodding to Carise. “I hope my time here will lead to great things together.”

“As do I,” Carise purred.

That purr followed her as Dari led Leia down the corridor to a new set of stairs.


	2. The Servant's Pools

Delicate balls hung from the ceiling, spheres of glass holding motes of plasma. Each one dangled from a hypha strand. That plasma glowed dim, flickering pleasantly in shades of violet and pink and blue. 

At least the quarters assigned to her and her entourage were well lit. And had windows. Sort of. A screen of stretched silk separated the room from the weather outside. The night was pitch black outside, no moonlight to speak of and no settlements on the mud flats that used to be a deep dark forest. There was nothing outside.

Inside was a little better. A low table in the sitting room held a spread of what were surely pleasant Arkanan delicacies but there were no chairs. Instead the table was surrounded by pillows as though Carise expected her guests to sit on the floor.

Further in Leia found a main room with a couch hastily dumped in the corner without thought to the beauty or the flow of the room. The bright acid-green couch clashed with the room and the soft maroon pillows on the floor. A cabinet held offerings of alcohol and crystal ware but there were no tables in this room to facilitate lounging and drinking. Unless, again, Carise expected them to take advantage of the floor.

A bedroom thankfully held an actual bed. The bedframe was carved wood, also not matching the decor of the rooms. The lacquered wood felt slightly sticky to the touch, not meant for such a wet climate. At least the mattress was large and soft, a Chandrillian King, and the blankets felt thick and heavy. 

Leia returned to the sitting room where Ashter knelt on the pillows around the table and Masall prodded them with her foot. R2-D2 whirred around the room tittering in binary while C-3PO took up a guard position near the door. 

“Refreshments before bed,” Ashter said. She picked at a purplish brown mushroom cap the size of her palm. It was roasted and pre-sliced, drizzled in some sort of sauce.

Leia slowly folded down to sit on the floor, pillows gathered beneath her. A decanter of something warm, thick and bitter-smelling, sat in the middle of the table with six small cups arrayed around it. Plates held what looked like all manner of different types of mushrooms stuffed and grilled and sliced and raw and salted and sauced. Several were brightly colored and Leia pushed those away.

Masall sighed and knelt down on the pillows. She picked up the decanter and sniffed at it. “Strong,” she muttered before pouring out three small cups of the liquid. “Not sure what it is.”

“What does it smell like?” Ashter asked.

“Notes of taurine, chocolate, and nerf musk.”

Leia picked up a mushroom she recognized, a small gray mushroom similar to ones Carise had served her before. It was stuffed with what looked like fresh cheese. She took a bite. The thick cheese melted like cream, earthy and rich, cut only by the slight bitterness of the roasted mushroom.

“You trust the Lady Sindian, then?” Masall asked.

“I trust she needs something from me,” Leia allowed. “That’s enough.”

Masall nodded and brought the small cup to her lips. She took a sip then winced and shuddered. “Ugh. It tastes like pain.”

Leia lifted her own small cup and smelled it. It smelled like oversteeped taurine with additional notes of funk. She took a sip and forced herself to swallow, the bitterness creeping up the back of her nose. She stuffed the creamy mushroom into her mouth and that seemed to help, the bitterness fading under the melange.

“Princess Leia.”

Leia looked up at C-3PO where he stood in the entryway. 3PO stepped back and shuffled back to guarding the door, revealing their visitor.

Captain Oness took two steps into the room before sinking to his knees and bowing his head. “Princess,” he greeted. “Forgive me.”

“For what, Captain?” Leia asked. She would normally have stood to accept his plea for forgiveness, maybe run a hand through his hair as he knelt before her. Instead she changed her own kneel, shifting to lounge on the pillows like she belonged there. Despite her lack of height above him she still felt powerful like this and she lorded that power over him.

“You bid me to stay in the staff quarters,” Oness said, his gaze firmly fixed on the floor. “I tried, I did, Your Highness. But I couldn’t bring myself to stay.”

“Why not, Captain?” Leia asked, still using his title. She could feel him wince inside every time she did, a sure sign he knew he had disappointed her. She took a sip of the bitter Arkanan tea, refusing to show how it affected her.

“These Arkanans have no boundaries. There’s only one sleeping chamber in the staff quarters, no beds at all, just the floor. They all sleep on the floor entwined around each other without a stitch of clothing! It’s…” Oness shivered, still refusing to look up from the floor.

“And you’ve grown so used to your bunk that you won’t sleep any other way, is that it, Captain?” Leia didn’t relish how he shivered, how he chastised himself for bothering her with such a small concern. She told herself his self-flagellation meant nothing to her. If it meant something she would have pressed upon it, building his passionate guilt to something she might use. She’d hoped to use him to gather information from the servants. The staff of a manor this size, with this much of the Sindian family living here, must have multitudes of information to confirm or deny Carise’s claims. 

Instead he was here, on his knees before her, his anxiety rolling off of him in waves. She could have pressed for more but didn’t. “There is a couch in the other room,” she offered, gesturing with her empty hand. “You may sleep there.”

Captain Oness looked at her in relief before bowing low to the floor then standing. He scurried into the other room.

“Princess, are you all right?” Masall asked.

Leia waved off her aide’s concern. She understood it, normally Leia might have had the captain wait on his knees for an hour before making her decision. But not tonight. She had other things on her mind tonight and for once it wasn’t her conscience admonishing her in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Luke.

Tonight she had some thinking to do.

*****

The bedroom was not conducive to thinking. Leia left Masall and Ashter in the bed, letting them sleep believing she lay protected between them. Instead she padded out of the bedroom into the quiet halls of the estate wearing nothing but her nightgown, her hair tied back in simple sleeping braids.

Plasma lamps burned low, their colors flickering dull pale in the darkness. Instead the walls shimmered in tiny patterns. Leia looked close, leaning in with her nose nearly touching the wall, to see thin rivulets of thin shining sap trailing down channels that ran just under the surface. She touched a wall with one fingertip, pressing in. It bent under her fingertip, springing back into place as she let go. Like everything else on this planet it felt damp but strong and a little bit warm.

She felt something behind her, the sensation of something curious. Or perhaps someone.

Leia turned to face her shadow and saw a single pair of eyes glowing lamp-like in the darkness. Those eyes lowered to the floor, a curious chirp accompanying the movement as her shadow crouched down to their belly. Embarrassment as being discovered, perhaps.

“And you are?” Leia asked.

Her shadow stood up then stepped out of the darkness where she could see him. He was a boy of maybe 19, long and lean and thin. His crest was thin, a patchy thing that reminded her of the beard a boy might grow before he reached manhood. He didn’t carry himself like the other Arkanans, in fact he seemed almost human.  


“You’re half human, aren’t you,” she realized.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, ducking down in embarrassment. She looked closer. His eyes shone in the darkness but their pupils were constrained, giving his eyes an almost human appearance. His mouth didn’t quite fit his teeth and they fit crooked in his smile. He didn’t have the same spots across his face that so many of the others had. His shoulders sat too wide, his hips static as he shifted from foot to foot. Even his feet were different, flat and easily adapted to standing. “Rylen is my name.”

Leia did the math in her head and realized what exactly must have happened. “Who was your father?” she asked.

Rylen shrugged. “Mother never told me,” he admitted. “Said it wasn’t important anymore. He was an Imperial, that’s all that people care about.”

“I see,” Leia mused. “Are there many like you?”

“Some. Many can pass themselves off as natives, they’re lucky. They can get jobs. But those of us who look human, well…” He trailed off.

“The Empire left many scars.”

Rylen shook his head. “It’s not that,” he said. “Maybe it’s like that out in the Core, ma’am, but the Regency knows we’re not our parents. I look human so people expect me to act human and it’s…” He shuddered. “I’m not like that.”

Leia felt the boy’s revulsion at the idea of acting human but she didn’t understand it. She wondered if it were cultural, if it was something the Arkanans could get used to, or maybe it was related to the environmental destruction she’d seen outside. She reached out for that revulsion, following it down with the Force to touch his surface thoughts. Her breath hitched as she realized something: he didn’t know who she was. She pulled her own mental touch away lest she give herself away.

Rylen shook off something he didn’t understand, his eyes still shining as he weaved from side to side. The movement seemed stilted in him, forced, nothing like the fluid motions of Carise or her aides. “Was there something you needed, ma’am?” he asked.

Leia considered returning to her quarters, crawling back into bed between her own two aides, allowing this opportunity to pass her by. She dismissed the idea. She then considered this half human boy before her and how he seemed to try so hard to move like an Arkanan. She could learn a great deal from someone like him, especially if his ignorance about her kept his tongue loose. “I need to feel water on my skin,” she said. “Does the estate have bathing pools?”

Rylen clicked his teeth and purred. “Of course, ma’am,” he said. He slunk off, dropping to all fours as he scampered down the corridor. He took a turn quickly then paused, looking back and chirping. He expected her to follow him.

Leia chuckled and did so, keeping her feet and her dignity even as he scampered like the Arkanan he tried so hard to be. As all children mimicked their parents, no matter what they might wish.

The thought left her wondering. How many Imperial bastards did Carise keep in her employ?

*****

Rylen led her down to the ground level of the estate then out a side door. At first glance this place might have been a garden. Multiple colors of fungi met her eyes, from tiny white mushrooms lining winding paths to large bracket fungi that provided shelter from the rain along the walls to conidiophore stalks that held multi-color puffs of spores. She didn’t realize she’d brushed up against one until she felt the sticky spore ooze against her bare arm, tug slightly, then pull away from the stalk. It was large, like a seed the size of her fist with a soft fluffy sticky pink seed coat that smelled like fresh marshmallow.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to touch it, though it didn’t hurt where it touched her skin. “Rylen,” she warned, unable to take her eyes from the pale pink goop stuck to her.

Rylen grabbed it with his bare hand and pulled it away. “It’s ripe,” he offered, holding it out for her to take. She saw how the sticky pink oozed between his fingers and declined. She didn’t watch as he bit into it. The wet crunching sounds were more than enough.

He led her out past the garden toward sounds that Leia found much more welcoming. She could hear water. People in the water. It sounded like home.

The path under her bare feet grew muddy as Rylen pushed aside a curtain of dangling hyphae to reveal a slope down to what looked like a cluster of natural pools with about a half a dozen Arkanans splashing and swimming and enjoying themselves. The middle pool, the largest, held water that looked black in the darkness of the Arkanan night. The people in it, however, broke the illusion. A mother held a toddler in her arms, she lazily kicked beneath to keep them afloat while her child splashed and giggled. Three teenage girls lounged to one edge of the pool in heated conversation. A man with a thick black crest lay on his belly along a muddy ramp that seemed to slide into the water, his feet idly splashing in the pool.

Several smaller outer pools didn’t look like water, not quite, certainly not as she watched a bare Arkanan woman step into one and sink down to her shoulders in thick black mud. Two gray-crested women in their own small pool, the years written on their faces, paused their conversation to stare at Leia. Leia could feel the recognition bubbling up and she tried to project an air of unimportance.

“There are other pools,” Rylen admitted. “But these are my favorite.” He licked the remaining pink goop from his hand then his gaze turned to the pink still staining Leia’s arm.

Leia recognized that look. It was the same look Ben always gave her when he knew she’d say ‘no’ if he asked. This time, though, she felt indulgent and sighed, holding out her arm.

She expected Rylen to scrape the pink goop from her skin with his fingers. Instead he purred and licked it off with an oddly rough and flat tongue that made her shiver. The moment ended quickly and he pulled back, purring and blushing.

That was… odd.

“You’re Alderaanian,” Rylen said. “You don’t have a tail with you, though. That’s fine, there are steps into the water over there. If you have a tail you can always come back later, there’s a ramp on the other side where Adith is laying.” He gestured to the man laying halfway in the water. “There’s no clothes in any of the pools, though, but we all just toss our clothes over there.” He pointed to a string of plasma lamps with several sets of clothing draped haphazardly over. “There’s water for washing our feet when we go back inside.”

“We wash our feet before going inside?” Leia asked.

“Of course. It’s rude not to.”

“And we wouldn’t want to be rude.”

Rylen shucked his clothes and tossed them over the line. He then jumped into the pool, cannon-balling in that particular way boys do when trying to splash as many people as possible. Leia found herself laughing as the two women in their private mudpit hissed at him, fangs bared like Loth cats. The mother splashed Rylen back as he surfaced, her little one giggling in her arms. But the three young women all ignored him, visibly unimpressed by his antics.

Leia wasn’t sure about the rule on nudity but she’d never been ashamed of her body. And the others were all either nude or so covered in mud it didn’t matter. She pulled her nightgown over her shoulders, draping it carefully over the line of plasma lamps. Then she pulled at her hair, letting the braids fall from their sleep-tie to tumble down her shoulders in thick bunches. She stepped into the water, suppressing the instinctive gasp at its chill. An Alderaanian never gasps at cold water, words ingrained into her from childhood. But she never could stop the goosebumps that raised all along her skin as she plunged into the dark cold water.

She opened her eyes.

Water pressed comfortably on her from all sides. The cold seeped into her bones, awakening in her memories she cherished. She opened her mouth, tasting it. Clean, fresh, organic, but with none of the salt she craved. Her legs kicked freely of each other, unbound, and she longed to feel the confinement of her tail, water flowing through her gills, the rush of clarity as she took her first breath underwater.

A feeling she hadn’t allowed herself since Alderaan. A feeling she could never allow herself again.

Leia surfaced, gasping as she felt more alive than she had in months.

The two older women whispered among themselves in Huttese, Leia paid them no mind. Their suspicion wasn’t something she wanted to consider at the moment. Rylen was busy talking to the three teenage girls who had all decided to ignore him. The mother with her baby floated on her back in the water, the child curled on her belly like he would sleep there. It all felt so normal, almost human. A moment of peace in a place where no one had yet realized who she was.

Nobody here recognized her. She dipped back underwater to contemplate her situation for the length of one long breath. Had the Rebellion been so long ago that her face was forgotten? Was she just another Senator, a name to be learned in school and then forgotten in favor of more pressing local matters? Rylen hadn’t asked her name and she hadn’t given it. He thought she was an aide or a servant, equal to him in station. And as an equal she was privy to his secrets, like these pools. His ‘favorite’ out of however many in the estate. Servant’s pools where they could relax without worrying about service or secrecy.

Leia closed her eyes and cleared her mind, allowing herself to feel.

She felt three girls uninterested in a boy, they had other things to talk about. She felt one boy who sulked as he slunk away and pulled himself into one of the mud pits. She felt a tired mother who could only get her baby to sleep after a long swim, no doubt the fault of his Alderaanian father. Two older women who came to these pools because they thought they wouldn’t have to deal with young Imperial bastards. A tired woman relaxing after a long day in the kitchens. 

They didn’t know who she was.

Leia opened her eyes. This was an opportunity. Nobody knew who she was, why didn’t she take advantage by listening to all the servant gossip that Captain Oness was incapable of. She kicked against the water, rising to the surface and a deep breath.

“I thought Alderaanians had gills.”

The words took Leia by surprise. She reached up to her neck where she knew the gills must be visible as ridges under the skin as she considered the Arkanan woman relaxing alone. “They’re implants,” she allowed. “I had mine done when I was younger.”

“You allowed them to grow over?” The mud pit shifted as the woman moved, sliding through to lean against the side of the pool. Leia realized the natural look was just that, a look, because the barrier between the mud pits and the clear water of the pool was just a wall.

Leia dipped below the water. She swam closer, all the easier for conversation, then popped up next to the wall and this Arkanan stranger. “I don’t often get the opportunity,” she allowed. It wasn’t exactly a lie but it was easier than admitting she didn’t feel it was right now that Alderaan was gone.

“I imagine working in space doesn’t offer a great deal of opportunity.”

“Not for swimming.”

“For other things, then.”

Leia allowed herself an enigmatic smile, the closest she could come to a non-answer.

“My name's Zelenya," the woman said. “I never got yours.”

Leia didn’t want to give up her anonymity. But then she didn’t have to. She remembered when she first met Lando Calrission, how she gave her name in such a way that it meant nothing. She weaved that sense of nothingness into her voice as she spoke. “Leia,” she said, and she knew as she said it that Zelenya wouldn’t recognize her.

Zelenya dipped her arms in the water, rubbing the mud from her skin. The blackness refused to fade from her hands, markings that stretched up her forearms to fade into spots across her elbows. This close Leia could see the spots over her muzzle and trailing down her shoulders and chest. 

“I suppose you’d know what’s going on,” Zelenya allowed. “Most Alderaanians I know still use their gills. Even their tails. You're different.”

“How do you know I’m not from the city?” Leia asked.

Zelenya snorted. It was not an elegant sound. “I’m Second Champignier in these kitchens, Mistress Sindian only puts me to work this much when she’s trying to show off. If you were from any of the cities I wouldn’t be up to my elbows in sauces all day. You’re not Parliament, your braids are all wrong for an expat. No, you’re still beholden to Alderaan. You're an off-worlder.”

Leia pretended she wasn’t unnerved by how much Zelenya had deduced with nothing except the workload from the kitchen to go on. 

“It makes some sense,” Zelenya continued. “Now that power’s coming back to the Sindian House I’ve got a lot more freedom to experiment.” She stretched lazily, purring as her black hands grasped at the water.

“‘Power’s coming back’?” Leia asked. “I was unaware the Sindian House ever lost power.”

Zelenya scowled, green eyes flashing in the half-light of the plasma lamps. “Arkanis labored under human representation for twenty years as New Republic punishment. ‘No hard feelings you Imperial bastards’. As if we didn’t suffer under the Empire even if we kept our pride.” She laid her chin against the wall separating the pools, heedless of the mud that squelched up under her chin. “For some of us, our pride is all we had left.”

Leia glanced over at Rylen where he now pointedly ignored the three teenage girls who splashed each other in the pool, giggling theatrically as they teased him. A few hours before she would have argued that Arkanis survived the Empire more than intact. Now...

Leia closed her eyes and sank down in the water, letting her mind reach out. She saw a child, a half human toddler with red hair and shining eyes. She watched as that child was carried away screaming by an Imperial officer and felt murderous rage at the offense. She wasn’t sure if the rage was her’s or if it belonged to Zelenya.

Now, seeing the empty mudflats, the half-human children left behind by their Imperial fathers, and those carried away, Leia wasn’t too sure she’d win that argument.

Thoughts of rage turned, as though they were long ago recognized as useless. Instead Leia felt thoughts of… wait… of woodoo eggs and bantha cream?

Leia surfaced and Zelenya splashed her. “I came down here to relax and now you’ve got me thinking about work,” Zelenya complained. “Woodoo eggs. Couldn’t be something with a real yolk to it, no, it couldn’t be easy. I have to use woodoo eggs.”

Leia didn’t know anything about cooking, she’d always had food cooked for her. Even in the Rebellion when they lived on ration bars and spite she had C-3PO to attend to her as befitting her station as Princess of Alderaan. She dropped back underwater to think on what she’d gathered. 

Alderaan was destroyed by the Empire but at least they still had their culture and their pride. At first glance the Arkanis Regency suffered Imperial rule so much better than most. But even Arkanis didn’t come away unscathed. An entire generation of half-human bastards attested to that, perhaps more so than the ruined forests and the domed cities. 

Leia needed to speak to Carise. Tomorrow. It could wait until tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I first touched on [Alderaanian mermaid culture](https://nebulousmistress.tumblr.com/post/618602663009976320/on-assisted-evolution) in May. I've been sitting on this idea for 5 months.


	3. Common Ground

Leia’s mourning wools hung heavy on her frame as she followed Dari down the spiral staircase to the estate’s main foyer. Memories of the night before weighed her down, her sleep fitful despite the swim and the company of her two aides who walked one step behind her. Caf sounded like an excellent idea though she had no idea if Arkanans even drank the stuff.

The sounds of children running and screaming heralded the kind of morning it would be.

They left the staircase at the second floor, following the sounds to a single large banquet hall. Plasma globes hung from the ceiling in legions, like an entire forest of fruiting fungus turned upside down. Most of the lamps were off, a few flickering here and there in the twilight of Arkanan day. Balconies lined one wall, the misty gray day filtering through to grant the entire display a veil of light gray and the scent of water.

Long tables stood, for some definitions of ‘stood’. There were no chairs, only more of those many pillows all over the floor. The tables matched the pillow’s height, no taller than caf tables. Already much of the Sindian family lay and lounged and knelt on pillows at the tables.

Nobody stood on ceremony.

Breakfast looked like it might be a casual affair given how everyone talked and ate, but the food seemed anything but. Whole place settings were carefully arranged, each fork and knife and stabbing spike used to proper effectiveness even by the most laid back of lounger. Flutes of what looked like pale blue champagne sat at most place settings, even the children had small squat glasses of something bubbling.

Smells of bitter champagne and earthy roast mushrooms assaulted the senses. A strange note of raw meat tickled the back of the palette and Leia hoped the smell was only an illusion. At least there were familiar smells, strong taurine and the beautiful siren smell of black caf.

Leia felt rather than saw the sudden shock of discovery, a serving woman with a toddler strapped to her back. The baby cooed and waved even as the mother fled back out of sight.

Older children sat with their parents, curled up in their arms or laying with a head in a lap, or even trying to look all grown up as they ate pink puffed spore fruits and ominously raw pieces of meat.

Dari led Leia and her aides to one of the balconies.

This balcony was large enough to be a room on its own. Dari set the silk screen to separate them from the rest of the banquet hall, granting them all an illusion of privacy.

“I’m pleased you made it down for breakfast,” Carise said. “I wasn’t sure you were coming.”

Leia glanced around, taking in her surroundings. Bracket fungi above shielded the balcony from any rain. Dangling hyphae pulled the mist out of the air, leaving the balcony itself relatively dry compared to the rest of Arkanis. Carise lounged on a wine-colored pillow at a small round table, a matching pillow on the other side. Carise gestured for Leia to sit.

Evan and Dari both served their Lady, one with the champagne bottle in hand and the other offering dishes with morsels for her to sample. They moved between the table and a sideboard with a platter of both interesting and ominous-looking dishes. Leia glanced back at Ashter and Masall; it was clear Carise meant for Leia’s aides to serve in the same capacity.

Ashter took Evan aside and asked about a pot of caf and Leia adored her for it.

“How could I refuse?” Leia said, her voice carefully light yet neutral. She settled down on the pillows across from Carise, shifting to avoid the feeling of kneeling before the table. She wouldn't kneel, not ever again, and certainly not here.

“Of course,” Carise agreed. She clicked her teeth and Dari placed something that looked very much like a rosette of raw meat drizzled in transparent yellow sauce onto her plate. “We still have much to discuss. How did you sleep?”

“Well enough,” Leia allowed. “I had some time to think.”

“Oh? Only good things I hope.”

Leia smiled, a false expression that turned all too real when Ashter handed her a mug of black caf. Masall laid something pale and fluffy-looking on her plate. “Crimson cap meringue with bantha cream sauce,” Masall said.

“Oh, I tried those,” Carise allowed. “One of my chefs had a breakthrough last night. Tell me what you think.”

Leia took a sip of caf, strong and bitter, then looked down at the pale fluffy thing. She picked up a knife and sliced it open, finding the outer crust somehow retaining its crunch in the misty air. Inside she found a delicately folded mushroom cap, thin and pliable and it didn’t smell raw. Instead it seemed to have a delicate spice that turned rich as the cap unfolded to reveal the pocket of sauce and a runny egg yolk inside.

But it wasn’t raw. That was the most important point Leia considered as she picked up a spoon and took a bite. The richness of the whole melange cut the bitterness of the caf, both flavors building off of each other into a satisfying sensation not unlike a full belly on its own, and just from one bite.

“It’s… very rich,” Leia allowed. “My compliments.”

Carise accepted one of the same, cracking it open and dipping petals of her raw meat rosette into the egg yolk within. “Arkanan cuisine can be quite rich if you’re not used to it. It has to be, to sustain us here.” She paused to take a bite of her raw meat dipped in egg, savoring it. “Of course, the only foodstuffs that can be found naturally here are quite rich on their own. Why wouldn’t we accentuate that.”

“That is fair.” Leia allowed the concession as she sipped her caf. She doubted this world had any sort of sweetener that she might use to lighten it. At least, no sweetener she wanted to experience.

“Another difference between our peoples and the rest of the galaxy,” Carise continued. “I have yet to meet an Alderaanian who couldn’t out-eat me. How do you stand it? How did you, Princess, personally learn to live like them?”

“I had to,” Leia admitted. “We didn’t have food options in the Rebellion. We had whatever we could beg, borrow, or steal. I spent years eating Imperial ration bars and hated every moment of it.”

“Ah, so you’ve known personal famine.” Carise nodded sagely. “I suppose that can change one’s relationship with food permanently.”

“I suppose you would know?”

“I would not,” Carise admitted. “That makes me one of the lucky ones.”

“You never lived under the Empire,” Leia agreed. “You weren’t born yet.”

“This is true.” Evan poured Carise a fresh flute of champagne, pale blue and bubbling. He offered her a selection of small nodules and she pointed to one. He dropped it in the flute and it hissed, blossoming from a firm nodule into a round ball of puff that turned the champagne colors through blue to green to sickening yellow as the puff sank to the bottom of the flute as a round fuzzy sphere. “I never experienced Arkanis under the Regency’s power. I only heard stories and studied the histories.” Carise sipped her yellowed champagne as she gave Leia a long look. “Much the same as you, I believe.”

“Excuse me?”

“You never experienced the Republic firsthand, only the histories and stories told to you. You grew up under the Empire’s banner. And yet you threw that off to restore your Republic. Are my actions so different?”

Leia wanted to protest. There was a difference between their experiences. But she remembered the blank mudflats, the faint glow of the distant domed city. Carise was only trying to restore an Arkanis that was, the same as Leia worked to restore the Republic that was. The idea of restoring anything related to the Empire caused a spike of disgust that Leia covered by draining her mug of caf and looking out over the landscape.

The mists hung low over the mudflat where a forest once grew. A light gray sky covered twin suns too far to fully dry out the atmosphere. The mists turned everything beyond a dull brown gray, a far cry from the bright colors of the fungal garden from last night. She wondered what the forest would have looked like, before the Siege and the New Republic, when the forests extended up to the fifth balcony above. What would it have looked like from here, from below the canopy, she wondered. “I suppose they’re not,” she admitted.

Carise purred at Leia’s admission. Leia understood why as Masall laid a fresh plate of poached eggs before her and Ashter refilled her mug of caf. Common ground was the starting point of any negotiation and now they had it.

*****

“What makes a human?” Carise asked. “Is it allegiance? Is it adaptation? Or is it culture?”

“Or is it something else, a common ancestor?” Leia countered. Her mourning wools were behind her, carried off by Masall as Ashter kept her caf mug filled. The white dress of a Princess of Alderaan did not hide much in the damp mists, the silk clinging to her skin in ways that left little to the imagination. But then, Carise wasn't overly modest either, especially not today with the loose veil draped over her hair and something over her lap and nothing else.

“There are many alien species who can trace their ancestry back to humanity,” Carise countered. “Genetic studies imply a great deal of meddling in humanity’s history. An outside source, perhaps.”

Leia had to allow that. Luke’s own research into the Force and the Jedi turned up a great many things about something he called the Rakatan Empire.

“Alderaan was the soul of the galaxy once,” Leia mused. “If culture is what makes a human, that would make me human.”

“Would it though?” Carise allowed Dari to place another plate in front of her, this one of sliced fruits that couldn’t possibly be fruit but Leia didn’t want to think of what fungus they were. “Humanity strove to be Alderaan. They held you up as their ideal, much as a pet looks up to its master. Alderaan wasn’t their culture, Alderaan was what they wanted to become. Alderaan was the soul of the galaxy because you were the perfection humanity sought to obtain.”

Masall took Leia’s empty plate and laid a fresh one before her, a tiny salad of fresh mushroom stems tossed in oil and spices. “You flatter me, my Lady.”

“You deserve it, Princess,” Carise purred. “Culture, then. Yours was respected because you represented what humanity could become. Ours was not because we were too different, or perhaps there’s some derogatory symbolism that a human might come up with. ‘Fungal hell’ was one that Leopold was rather fond of.”

“There’s more to it than simply culture,” Leia countered. “Human cultures run the gamut from smuggler’s havens to ‘free planets’ to egalitarian utopias to feral hunters to everything in between. If culture was all that separated us we’d be a galaxy of a thousand aliens and only Coruscant to claim humanity.”

“Would that be so terrible?” Carise mused. “But you are correct. There’s more between us than mere culture. There’s also our worlds and what they've done to us. Humans spread like mold because they are so adaptable. Until they’ve adapted to a world so much that they become a part of it. Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t there those on Alderaan who’d given up land entirely?”

“There were.”

“And were they Alderaanian?”

“Of course.” Leia had the feeling she knew where this was going.

“But no human would claim them. They’d given up hands, legs, lungs. In their place they had their webbed fingers, their tails, their gills.”

“Two of which were manufactured.”

Carise scoffed. “Would you deprive a man without an arm the use of his droid prosthetic? Would you not say that prosthetic is a part of him? Are your own gills a part of you?”

They were. Leia rubbed a hand along her neck, feeling the implants ridging beneath the skin. “They were Alderaanian,” she agreed. “As am I.”

“Not all adaptations are so easy to install. Some grow that way after countless generations of evolution.”

“Or purposeful meddling,” Leia admitted. “Not all cultures shun genetic research. Who knows what they might create one day. Who knows what’s already been done.”

“Culture isn’t enough, then,” Carise concluded. “Adaptation is necessary. A planet needs to change its people, otherwise they’re still just humans. Colonists. Only those who allow their planet to change them can truly shed their humanity to become something more.”

Leia had to concede the point. At the very least it gave a definition, something that could be taken to the Senate and referenced. “Humanity then is a measure of genetic and cultural compatibility,” she allowed.

“I would say ‘difference’, not compatibility,” Carise warned. “Humans will mate with anything they can get their grubby hands on. Twi’leks, wookies, mon calamari, us, you, why I’m sure there are humans out there who find the Hutts attractive.”

Leia shuddered. “Ugh, don’t remind me.” A cold feeling washed over her, distant and ominous.

“Apologies.” Carise did not sound quite apologetic. “But you yourself negotiated with the Alder-Espirions. Even Alderaanians aren’t immune to the human allure of novel experience, it seems.”

Leia vaguely felt like she was being insulted. But it wasn’t important, not as the sensation of cold washed over her. It had nothing to do with the mists that felt warm against her chilled skin.

“Mistress, are you all right?” Masall’s voice sounded far away and growing further, an echoing distance stretching between Leia and the rest of the world.

Leia heard a sound that plunged her soul into ice.

She heard a lightsabre activate.

“No,” she whispered.

“Princess Organa?” Carise asked. Her voice warbled through meters of water, like a voice shouted from the surface far above. 

“Ben, oh no…” Leia realized. “ **Ben** …”

She could hear the crash of sabres, the icy cold that engulfed a flickering flame. Hot enough to burn, always dancing in her hands, a fire she always longed to hold in her own cold hands but never could. Cold and dry and metallic, dust swirled in her mind tinged with the stench of ozone and potential and _power_.

_I’m not special. I’m no one._

Drops of rain began to fall, fat and slow and drifting like spores on the wind. Each drop felt like fire, heavy patters of lava against her. Yet the cold inside her spread, turning even the hottest drops to stone.

_Other people think I’m special. I don’t._

Fire and ice swirled on the other side of the galaxy, on the other side of the table, close enough to touch. Sabres clashed as she fell, she fell forever into the deepest water.

_That means I can do anything I want._

Leia screamed as she felt the sabre stab through her heart.

And then it was over.

It was all over.

Everything.

*****

Leia opened her eyes to darkness.

The last thing she remembered…

Images flashed into her mind’s eye. Carise leaning over her, eyes like black pits, fangs bared as she screamed silent words into nothingness. Fire and ice swirling in the infinite duel as she and Luke danced and fought and giggled together in the forests of Endor. The touch of lava quenched by a heart of ice. Luke’s terrible message about Ben destroying the Jedi temple; how long ago had it been now? She didn’t even know anymore.

Ben.

Wait…

**BEN!**

Leia sat up screaming.

Hands grasped at her, too many hands from every direction. The darkness shone with dozens of eyes, so many eyes all staring at her. She didn’t know where she was, she was surrounded by monsters, she was alone, so cold, so hot, couldn’t…

Her screams faded as the darkness pressed in, as dozens of eyes all approached her, as hands all roamed her naked skin and pulled her back down into the cold water of her own mind and the sensation of an Arkanan’s rumbling purr.

*****

Leia awoke to a chilly twilight mist. Gray windows dripped water as the rains ran down the walls to puddle on the floor. But she wasn’t cold. For the first time in what felt like forever she wasn’t cold.

She wasn’t alone either.

The arm draped over her bare chest was new. So was the sleeping belly behind her, someone curled around her head as she used them as a pillow. The face nuzzled into her knees was just as unexpected. Someone’s child was curled up to her side using one of her arms as a pillow. Worst of all, she appeared to be naked. What had she done last night?

Then she remembered. She felt it through the Force. Ben was in trouble, he’d done something unwise. He’d done something Luke had warned her about so long ago, before Ben was even an idea. She’d felt it.

And she’d lost control.

Leia stared up at the ceiling. Struts like mushroom gills spread across the ceiling, she couldn’t tell if they were support structures or decorative or both. This certainly wasn’t her chambers. She had no idea where she was in the estate or if she could get up without anyone noticing. She certainly wasn’t alone. 

The room had no furniture. She lay on the floor. So did the others, at least, where they weren’t laying on her. Or each other. She couldn’t seem to separate them out into individual people like this. Nobody wore clothes, nor did they seem to care. Spots and stripes and patches of black and brown and red marred pigmentless skin under crests of fur. Deceptively human-like faces hid fanged maws and inhuman eyes and Leia wondered how in the Force she’d once agreed with Mon Mothma about these people. There wasn’t a single human being in this room.

Then she heard it. The purr was familiar by now, a sound she couldn’t seem to escape on this strange planet. Leia tried to sit up but then she felt the child beside her rumble and awaken and curl in closer to her. The man behind her stretched and his stomach growled under her ear. Someone rolled over and draped their arm over her belly, holding her in place.

“They were worried about you.”

Leia knew that voice. She propped herself up her elbows to watch as Carise approached.

Carise had given up all pretense of moving like a human. Instead she stalked on hands and feet, wet and glistening and glorious. Her crest rose behind her in a shimmering black cascade. Her eyes looked like black pits and Leia understood why Carise wore the yellow lenses in the Senate.

“You gave us all quite the scare,” Carise said. “You cried out for a 'Ben' and then you collapsed. Your aides wanted to put you to bed and let you sleep it off.” She chuckled. “One of the perks of nobility. This is my household, I agreed to let you sleep it off but I decided where.”

“And where am I?” Leia asked.

Carise came to rest next to Leia and Leia couldn’t tell if Carise stopped in a squat or a crouch or a sit or even a feline loaf. “By the human’s laws only the eldest heir retains the title,” she said. “Arkanis follows no such restrictions. You’re in one of the family quarters.”

Leia looked around. The man behind her rolled over and stretched as he awoke. He shook his black crest and stretched each leg in turn before yawning with large sharp teeth. The child against her whined and nudged her breast, audibly sniffing, before opening large blue eyes. Someone dragged their body over Leia’s legs then laid there as though refusing to allow her to move.

“It’s a human title,” Carise explained. “Passed down for thousands of years, since the last human colonists gave themselves to darkness. It carries weight in the rest of the galaxy. It gives the Sindian family power when dealing with Empires and Republics and corporations. But I still have uncles and mothers and granddams to deal with like any other. You worried them. I’d be shunned in my own house if I didn’t let you stay with family.”

Leia thought she understood. From what she’d seen the Sindian family wasn’t small but according to House Records there was only one Lord or Lady of each generation. The previous Lord Achard Sindian was the only one of his line, when he died his only daughter Carise took the title. Or was she his daughter after all? Maybe the title was passed around in the family from cousin to cousin as though it belonged to all of them.

“Ben,” Carise mused. “You called out for him.”

Leia looked away. She didn’t want to talk about it.

“He’s your son, isn’t he. You hear things in the Senate. He’s off studying with an uncle.”

“He was,” Leia admitted. “Something’s… happened.”

Leia noticed the room stir more as others awoke. They stretched and squirmed, hands reaching out and sliding over her and themselves and each other. There was a lazy sensuality about it all, a decadence that they truly seemed to enjoy. They’d evolved, willingly and willfully, and had never once looked back.

Not even now as she felt their eyes on her, animal’s eyes of solid color with pupils that shimmered even in the half-light of morning. Wait, morning? Again?

“How long have I been asleep?” she asked.

*****

Masall and Ashter both cried out in relief as they leapt forward, one each reaching for one of Leia’s arms.

Leia was still exhausted. She’d slept for two days, crying out in her sleep for someone she knew she’d lost to darkness. Worse, she’d lost him to the darkness of another. All that time she’d been sequestered away in the family quarters, her aides and droids kept from her as the Arkanans kept her comfortable and company and kept her from falling too deep into her own darkness.

Now two large men, one named Nyall and another who called himself Ielle, led her back to her assigned quarters where her aides had waited without word or the ability to come to her comfort.

But now it was over.

C-3PO fussed while Masall led Nyall with Leia to the bedroom. Ashter made a show of cleaning up the front room, handing two day’s worth of dishes and tea cups to Ielle. Leia couldn’t be bothered to care as Nyall purred over her and then left, nor as Masall climbed into bed with her to ward against a lifetime’s of dreams.

This time her sleep was dreamless and when she awoke only a few hours had passed.

Leia couldn’t find her mourning wools, the fabric lost somewhere in the past few days. Instead she pulled on a silken dress of Arkanan design, something delivered to her while she slept. The silk draped her in finery, a blue feather pattern woven into the dress to curl over the immodest areas of her form. Leia wondered why but didn’t pry, she wasn’t sure her aides would know. To be honest, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know.

The low table in the main room held a small meal of delicate soups, rich and comforting foods to soothe a tired soul. There were no breads on the table, but then Leia didn’t remember seeing any sort of breads anywhere on Arkanis since she got here. It made sense that they wouldn’t have them, because they wouldn’t eat them.

“What do we do now, Princess?” Masall asked.

“The negotiations were a disaster,” Ashter admitted.

Leia shook her head. “I believe we got what we came for,” she allowed.

“What happens now, then?” Ashter asked. “What do we have?”

“We have enough to convince the Chancellor to see reason,” Leia said. “I hope.”

“And if we don’t?” Masall wondered.

“I’ll find out,” Leia said. She drank a bowl of the thick soup, broth and cream and the taste of bone marrow all cut by heavy spices that seemed almost medicinal in their arrangement.

She had a comm to make.

*****

Leia’s personal comm patched through her ship through New Republic channels to the personal comm of an old friend.

Mon Mothma’s tired face shone in the hologram, faded from the thousands of light years distance between Arkanis and Hosnian Prime. Leia knew she must look just as tired, a pair of old Rebellion heroes more at home in a Rebel base than a ruling palace. The road to victory had been long and hard-won but it was worth it.

Leia had to believe it was worth it. Otherwise, what did she fight for?

“Chancelor, when we drafted our policies they made sense,” Leia began. “The galaxy was fractured. Imperials still marauded unchecked even by their own government. The Outer Rim resented the Core for its complicity in Imperial rule. Corporations still dealt openly with war criminals. Stormtroopers invaded entire worlds in attempts to retain control over empty sectors.

“But the galaxy has changed,” she continued. “The Imperial Remnant is contained. Soon they’ll all age out, too old to bother anyone. But we can’t think that way, we need to be willing and able to hand the reins of power to those younger than us. That is the only way the New Republic will continue.”

“You’re not retiring, are you?” Mothma asked.

“Not yet,” Leia said. “I can't. I still have too much to do. So do you, Chancellor.”

“This sounds like a favor.”

Mon Mothma sounded amused over such a long distance. Leia wondered how long that amusement would last. “The galaxy has changed,” Leia repeated. “We haven’t. We have to if the New Republic will change with us. I would have us see the New Republic transition in name and deed to a proper Republic.”

“That will be a welcome discussion to bring to the Senate,” Mothma said and for once that statement wasn’t sarcastic.

“I would also see certain policies reversed.”

“Which ones?”

Leia took a deep breath. The comm showed Mothma standing before her desk, her usual spot for taking semi-personal comm calls in her office. Leia knew she looked entirely different, seated upon a pile of Arkanan pillows and draped in their silks, her hair damp, her braids cascading down in a nearly indecent manner. 

“I was recently made aware of a new population of Alderaanian diaspora,” Leia said. “But because of the 'Jewel of Coruscant' policy I had no idea they existed. The population of Alderaan is twice what I was led to believe and the galactic census had them all listed as ‘humans’.”

“Aren’t they?” Mothma asked, an odd edge to her voice. “Tell me, Princess, would the galaxy have mourned it’s soul if they believed that soul belonged to another? How many blamed Alderaan itself, blamed **you** for its destruction?”

“Humanity evolves.” Leia’s voice was cold, flickering flames of ice that licked at her insides. But she didn’t shiver. An Alderaanian never gasps at cold water and neither would she. “We evolved. Tatooine is evolving. The undercity of Coruscant evolved. Arkanis evolved. The 'Jewel of Coruscant' forces them into human lives with human ideals and human wants and human needs and human tools. This policy erase them all. It erases me. I cannot uphold this policy any longer.”

“That’s what this is about,” Mothma realized. “You’re on Arkanis right now, aren’t you. You should take the time to see the cities, Leopold tells me they’re so much more civilized than whatever backwater hovel you’re staying at now.”

Leia sat back, shock and insult clear on her expression.

“They’re human for the same reason you’re human,” Mothma said. “It forces the human galaxy to care. In return, it forces Arkanis to join the human race in the rest of civilized space. You don’t honestly want them returning to their feudal criminal enterprises, do you? They openly do business with the Hutts.”

“But it’s killing them,” Leia blurted. She was getting tired of people bringing up the Hutts in an attempt to get a rise out of her. She took a deep breath and collected her scattered thoughts. “The rebuilding efforts have clear-cut thousands of square kilometers of unique fungal forests that might never grow back. Entire architectural styles are being lost. People are **starving** because they can’t eat the food you force them to. Arkanis isn’t human, it’s dying.”

“Arkanis would have died anyway without the Empire,” Mothma said, clearly exasperated. “At least this way they have the chance to adapt. That’s what evolution is, isn’t it? Adaptation in the face of extinction? If Arkanis values its evolution so much, let them have it. Let them evolve into something the New Republic can use.”

Leia sat back at her friend’s words. One of her oldest friends, a mentor, an elder she respected, sounding like an Imperial. She heard elements of the old ‘Humanity First’ mantra tossed out at her, the same elements used to dismiss Alderaan, and wondered what the years had done to her friend.

“Thank you, Chancellor, you have opened my eyes,” Leia said, her voice carefully neutral. She ended the comm, the room falling dark as the hologram winked out. She let her head fall into her hands and knew what she had to do next. But first, she turned to the two points of iridescence in the corner, a pair of eyes lurking near the ceiling. 

“Inform Lady Carise we have much to discuss,” Leia commanded. Those eyes disappeared, a lithe form climbing out the window and over the balcony. 

If Chancellor Mon Mothma could not be reasoned with, well…

Alderaan and Arkanis had done great things together once. They would do so again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you might surmise, this chapter happens during the events of Rise of Kylo Ren #4. In the comic we see Leia feeling and reacting to Ben's fall but we don't see what she's doing. Now we do.
> 
> A few lines of dialogue have been lifted from the comic.


	4. Great Things

Alderaan’s apartments sat near the center of Hosnian Prime’s senatorial complex. The sound of water danced in the air. The fountains dripped water through dozens of bowls, one for each world where the Alderaanian Diaspora landed, into the central pool. Tiny pale Alderaanian litwinovii flowers peeked from underneath broad leaves in the pool, the only living specimen left in the galaxy. 

Leia listened to the sound of the fountain and wondered if she should have another bowl added for Arkanis.

She took one last glance in the mirror. One of the great myths to the galaxy was the lack of Alderaan’s warrior culture. It was true that Alderaan eschewed violence, that war was a distasteful concept best left to the humans of the galaxy. But that did not mean Alderaan did not remember.

Leia remembered.

Her hair wrapped around the crown of her head in a familiar pattern. The braids were finer than how she used to wear her hair during her Rebellion years, more befitting of the battle she was about to endure today. Gone were the simple cords and twines used to bind her braids as she’d done on Endor’s moon. Instead she threaded thin locks of hair through long strands of pearls. Kyber opals a bit too red to be pure shone where they sparkled like drops of water in her braids. Tiny chains of gold bound her braids, shackle and weapon and warning all in one.

She did not wear the white dress of a princess of Alderaan. Her mourning wools hung abandoned in a closet among a hundred other outfits gifted to her by those who didn’t know any better. Instead she wore the deep blues of her mother, Queen Breha Organa of Alderaan. Silver thread purposefully tarnished to black threaded through the bodice of her dress in long lines of kelp fronds. Her silk sleeves hung from her arms to hide her hands, the style implicitly suggesting her hands were webbed. Her silk skirt was unadorned, several layers of deep blue and sheer building to a color that was itself a statement: Alderaan and Arkanis had once done great things together and they would again.

She allowed Masall and Ashter to rouge her gills, to paint her eyes, to braid her hair, to adjust her bodice, to prepare her for battle.

That’s what this would be, a battle. Chancellor Mon Mothma was once a friend and mentor, a comrade in arms. A fellow Rebellion leader. But now her friend needed to be corrected.

Alderaan’s memory was at stake and Leia did not intend to lose that.

*****

The Senate Chambers of Hosnian Prime descended into the lower levels below the city’s surface. Each system had their own repulsorpod in the style of the previous Republic Senate on Coruscant. Though where the Coruscanti Senate measured power by how close one was to the center, the New Republic refused to show such favoritisms. Instead repulsorpods were assigned randomly. What each world did with their assignments was of no concern to the Senate, which surely explained why so many Core Worlds kept their central stations and why Outer Rim alliances clustered in the sections so far from the rest of the galaxy.

Leia finished her trade, exchanging places with the Galidraan system for the day. Galidraan leapt at the opportunity to sit in the middle during what was surely going to be an important session and all Leia asked was that they kept quiet about it all.

This all suited Leia just fine as she took her place in the repulsorpod so far from the Senate floor. Screens in the pod matched with hovercams that floated around the speakers as business of varying import was discussed.

The Taxpayer Advocate argued with the Budget Committee over interest rates.

Piracy was on the rise along the Listehol Run.

The Hays Double Planet in the Otomok System had declared a state of emergency, an attack by a yet unknown assailant. The Otomok System was on the edge of the Unknown Regions and there were concerns about overreaching the New Republic’s influence.

Alsakan argued the Republic-wide celebration of Kashyyyk’s Life Day was a clear violation of the separation of church and state and the shutdown of governmental services for the holiday was an insult to their own secular morals.

Leia knew the debate over interest rates was the one most likely to cause any change. She allowed it, waiting until it seemed to be winding down or at least until it wound to an impasse.

Then she made her move.

“The Chamber recognizes the Senator of the Alderaanian Diaspora.”

Eyes in the Senate Chambers all looked down toward the Senate floor where Leia normally held her court. Instead she allowed the repulsorpod to descend from above, from far above where the lesser systems and the Outer Rim worlds usually watched and impotently envied.

“Chancellor Mothma,” Leia began. “Senators. It is with a conflicted heart that I come to you today. I have recently been introduced to a population of Alderaanian expatriates who left my homeworld before its destruction. The known population of Alderaan’s Diaspora has doubled.”

Leia allowed the smattering of polite applause before continuing.

“Lady Carise Sindian, Senator of Arkanis, has my eternal gratitude for this development,” Leia said, gesturing above. A second repulsorpod descended from the far exile of the ceiling, Carise looking both regal and predatory in shining pale silks and her crest fluffed to unnerve. “It was Arkanis’s continued adherence to old laws and customs that allowed the expatriates of Alderaan to continue to identify themselves as such.

“This body, this Senate, would have me believe they were all human. The policies of this Senate would have ensured these Alderaanians remain unknown.” Leia turned to the assembled Senate and their breadth of confused expressions. “This Senate, this New Republic, would erase us. They would finish the Empire’s work.”

This set off a wave of outrage, as Leia knew it would. She basked in it, in the irrational anger all directed at her. She barely heard the Chancellor’s aide calling for order, it was less important than the anger that she pulled and then… turned.

“I took the traditional gills of my people at age sixteen,” Leia shouted. “What human would make the same claim? I have watched Arkanans stalk their prey on four feet, what human would do the same? I have known Triaxians to sleep for weeks during their Winters, what human would survive that? I have followed Garosian miners through the tunnels where they spend their entire lives, what human would endure that? This Senate would insist every race I named be called ‘human’ simply because that was the name of their far-off ancestors! This Senate would erase thousands of years of culture, of identity, of evolution!”

“Humanity followed the hyperspace lanes across this galaxy,” Carise said, speaking clearly above the din of the angry Senate. “Their adaptability served them well as they colonized world after world. But to believe the lie that they stayed human after that is sheer fantasy! Every world humanity touched changed them in turn. Every world made them its own!”

“This Senate would attempt to ignore thousands of years of evolution simply for the sake of accounting,” Leia said. “How long until the Senate takes matters into its own hands and enforces their ideas of humanity on those who dared to evolve?”

“They already have,” Carise snapped. “The Senate enforces their human structures and diets onto my planet. Mass famine and death are the results. My people suffer and die at the hands of this Senate’s ‘humanity’ and I **refuse** to stand by and allow it!”

“This Senate’s policies were meant to ensure humanity’s unity in the face of overwhelming hardship,” Leia allowed. “I know, I helped write them. I meant them to bring us together, not to erase us. The evolved humans of this galaxy cannot stand back and allow ourselves to be erased by this Senate any longer. The 'Jewel of Coruscant' needs to end. Here. Now.”

The Senate itself began to speak, voices rising up in a din of shouting. A thousand voices argued and mocked, screamed and ordered. Someone began calling for a vote, a sentiment that slowly began to rise as the call spread through the chamber. The Chancellor’s aides called for order, attempting to control the chaos that Leia commanded.

“The humanity promised by the 'Jewel of Coruscant' prevents Alderaanians from finding each other by denying them what makes them Alderaanian,” Leia shouted. “It destroys unique ecosystems and the evolved humans who adapted to them. It insults the strengths of those who allowed themselves to evolve!” She stepped back, arms out as she addressed not the Chancellor, not the Senate, but instead something more that even she didn’t quite understand. “Imagine a galaxy where humanity’s potential is unshackled! Where sentient beings are allowed to decide their own futures, to achieve their own potentials. Where evolution isn’t a flaw to be denied but a quality to be celebrated! Every uninhabited world in this galaxy colonized by those strong enough, brave enough, **adaptable** enough to evolve!”

Leia took a deep breath, calming herself as she realized just how cold she felt. She shook with power she hadn’t realized she’d drawn upon, instead baring her teeth in a smile as she locked eyes with Chancellor Mothma. If Leia didn’t know any better she might have imagined Mon Mothma feared her.

“Once humanity was unafraid,” Leia said. “Once humanity colonized without relying on terraforming their worlds. Once humanity allowed themselves to evolve and we were all enriched by it. This New Republic claims to value diversity in views, in races, in species, in worlds. Turn those claims into action, Chancellor.”

Leia left her threat of ‘before I do’ unspoken. She knew Chancellor Mothma heard it anyway as the chaos of the Senate began to rise again. And yet over the din of the mob, Leia could have sworn she heard Carise purr.

*****

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!” Mon Mothma demanded.

“What I had to,” Leia snapped. She was in no mood for this. Here she was, Senator and Princess of Alderaan, finally accepting the blues of her mother’s House, and Mon Mothma had called her in to the Chancellor’s office like a misbehaving schoolgirl. Chancellor Mothma’s aides stood in corners awaiting their Mistress’s needs while Leia’s own aides were disallowed entry.

Leia refused to back down. This wasn’t something she felt she could back down on.

“You **had** to remove yourself from the dominant species of the galaxy,” Mothma lamented.

“Humanity isn’t dominant, merely domineering.”

Mon Mothma tried again. “Princess, I’m only trying to protect you,” she said. “You remember after Alderaan, how many in the Empire blamed your world for its own destruction? How many still would if they had an excuse?”

“And you plan to give them the excuse?”

“You already have,” Mothma warned. “The Empire fell barely a human generation ago. The children raised by the Empire have only recently come of age. For all the alien species in this galaxy, humans still outnumber them. Sheer volume ensures this galaxy remains a human galaxy.”

Leia waved a hand dismissively. “I’ve already lost my family, my home, my planet, what do I care if I’m stripped of my humanity in the eyes of others? I'd give it up for my people, surely you realize that.”

“Would you lose your name?”

Leia scoffed at that one. “How?” she asked. “Only the Elder Houses have that right.”

“Yes, the Elder Houses,” Mon Mothma agreed. “The Elder Houses of Humanity.”

Leia snorted. “How many of them come from evolved planets?” she asked. “They wouldn’t strip me of my title any more than they’d strip themselves. Without the Houses of evolved humans there wouldn’t be more than one or two Houses left.”

“Would they think that far ahead? Or would they dismantle their own nobility entirely without considering the consequences?”

Leia scowled. Mon Mothma was correct about that. If the Elder Houses stripped House Organa from its rolls then other Houses would follow. House Sindian of Arkanis. House Vandron of Asmeru. House Rohlan of Ruusan. Given Coruscant didn’t retain its own nobility any longer it was possible there wouldn’t be a single House left standing.

The human nobility of the entire galaxy might remove themselves from power in their misguided attempt to remain purely human.

“Let them,” Leia said.

*****

The Elder Houses were ruled by cowards and hypocrites.

Leia heard about the vote two whole days after it had taken place. She dismissed it, it changed nothing. Of course the Elder Houses were too afraid to take any steps in any direction. House Organa retained its titles, as did House Sindian and all the rest. Leia didn’t care how close the vote had been or what words were said by whom.

None of it mattered.

What mattered was before her. The New Republic’s 'Jewel of Coruscant' policy had not survived the vote. Oddly enough it was the non-humanoid aliens who objected most to the policy’s dismantling. But the many human and evolved human worlds stood up to reject the policy.

It was an important first step but it was only the first.

She’d failed Ben, she felt his fall to darkness. Carise hadn’t asked for details about what happened, nor had Leia offered any. She didn’t want to think about it.

She’d failed Ben. She wouldn’t fail the galaxy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The author's own notes on this chapter can be found on tumblr: [On Human Nobility...](https://nebulousmistress.tumblr.com/post/634727583959908352/on-human-nobility)


End file.
